Sum of Memories
by Ayrith
Summary: madainsari themes. The equation that is Freya Crescent. Drabbles of various lengths, pairings and ratings. Chapter 12, The Art of Fire Playing. 'Some tools are necessary.'
1. 1 of 100th

**Title:** 1/100th  
**Characters/Pairings:** Zidane, Vivi, Quina, Beatrix  
**Genre: **Err…drama with a dash of angst  
**Rating:** PG13  
**Words:** 1698  
**Summary: **_Guardians, their charges, and the statistics.  
_**Notes: **In-game. Prompt: #22 Clerya, #82 fighting  
_  
_

* * *

"Now that I have this jewel, I am through with your city!" 

Vivi quivered behind her cape. Freya carefully blocked the mage from Beatrix's view, and then forgot him. _Your city. My city._ Wild, violent things churned within her, mingling with unshed tears. She could feel Burmecian blood on her feet and legs, red flakes crusted between her claws. The inner corners of her eyes were damp. Where was her lance? Dropped with a clatter near where Sir Fratley had stood. Freya cursed beneath her breath.

_First failure: never returning._

_Second failure: not remembering._

_But this: leaving. That she could not forgive._

Zidane made to chase after the knight, but Freya saw and quickly beat him to it.

"Halt, villain!" she cried out. Kamikaze. Disgrace. What else was there to do? Freya ran at the knight, feet pattering swiftly, vaulting into the air, claws extended, landing before her, lunging. Beatrix's cape whipped to a stop and quick as lightening the knight parried the raised arm and slashed at Freya's midsection. She did not account for Freya's inhuman proportions; the rat jumped back, her thick dragon hide coat slashed through but her stomach intact. No time for awe, no time for fear, Freya lunged again.

Zidane skidded a few feet away from them, his dagger unsheathed. He hesitated. Vivi stumbled to a halt behind him, lugging Freya's precious lance in the dirt, its oiled, polished surface dry with dust. Quina peered curiously over Zidane's shoulder.

"Too close," the Qu commented. Freya and Beatrix, the fastest blurs Zidane had ever seen, were caught in a dance of slashes and parries and blood on blades, on claws, on sleeves. An exchange of steel, in eyes and hand.

Beatrix threw a powerful punch that should have put Freya down, but something kept her on her feet, kept her bounding back too fast for him to calculate. His dagger itched to squeeze in and slice the Alexandrian knight from shoulder to belly and back, but it was always Freya's shoulder or arm or thigh in the way. Zidane was not sure who was orchestrating whom— if the Dragoon was protecting him from joining or the knight was protecting herself.

Freya cried out as Beatrix snapped her blade up and sunk it into the Burmecian's shoulder. A terrible cry, keening, before Freya clamped her bloody teeth shut. Her fingers glanced of Beatrix's face with a metallic screech that left red grooves.

It was obvious Freya was losing.

Vivi struggled up from the ground, dusty and burnt with wilting shoulders, and called upon fire.

The runes in the air vibrated with power. Vivi's eyes blinked with fatigue, vanished, and cracked open in tiny crescents.

Zidane saw too late. "No, Vivi! —"

The fire escaped from his fingers. Burning, churning, howling with excitement, it tore for Beatrix in a path of blazing white-hot energy. Freya did not see it, too blinded by the stain of blood on her thighs, on her hands, in her eyes. Beatrix did. Dropping Save the Queen at her feet, she caught Freya mid-lunge by her neck, rocked back, and propelled her with her boot into the flame.

Freya screamed. Shrill, piercing, loud, on and on forever. Zidane clasped his hands over his ears and blood trickled between his fingers. Vivi collapsed to his knees. Quina stared.

The fire cackled and vanished in a whisper. Freya fell to the ground with a jarring thud, limp. Beside her, Beatrix rolled to her feet, snatched up her sword, and swung it down.

"Freya!" Vivi whispered.

Nothing.

Freya opened fringed eyelashes to Beatrix's grim face and God Save the Queen pressed tightly against her throat.

Nothing. Freya stared and said nothing.

After an agonizing moment, Zidane hesitantly stepped forward.

"Move and she dies," Beatrix warned, and he stopped.

Freya gazed behind frozen eyelids and a haze of gray smoke. Beatrix's face played over and over in her head, _moving, flashing, no time for awe, but oh god_. Her open wounds smoked and the pressure at her neck choked her. She imagined her own head, red and raw, rolling limply on the floor.

What was there to say of this? There were no words. This was nothing like fighting dragons with distance between weapon and teeth, between spear and spear, between body and ground. This was power and quickness and no distance at all, and together like this she could not conquer it. For the first time in her life, Freya could not think straight, could not breathe.

Beatrix turned her steely eye to her. "Villain? You dare to calm me that? You rats could never understand. This is liberation," Beatrix said fiercely.

Something shining caught Freya's eye, and expressionlessly, her head tilted towards it. The Desert Star, the pride of Cleyra, glittered like a small sun a few feet from the Alexandrian Knights heel, flashes of rich brown and yellow casting patterns upon the smooth angular silver of the woman's eye patch. Beatrix noticed, glanced at the jewel, and then with a sudden jerky motion, snapped it up. Freya glanced back at Beatrix, at the dark ruts of the iron sword at her neck, and then to that covered eye, a wall of steel. Iron was in Beatrix's blood.

_Oh, Cleyra._ Freya thought. With a sudden, startling clarity, she realized she couldn't win.

Her lips parted and her voice was the wind dust settling around Cleyra, fallen, lifeless. "Liberation for whom, I wonder. Alexandria? Queen Brahne?"

Beatrix's stare was long and hard. "The princess," she said finally, breathing heavily.

Zidane gasped. Somewhere beneath them, in the distance, an explosion of fire plumed into a wave of debris. Someone screamed.

"I see," Freya whispered. "One for one hundred?"

"One is enough!" Beatrix snapped.

One is enough. Freya's body tightened painfully, coiling in on itself in resonance. _Bodies of monsters skewered by her spear and they stood together in the carnage, Sir Fratley kissing her and smiling and then gone, and she fell to her knees, again, again, again._

Freya shook her head weakly. "It will not work. It is not worth it."

Beatrix stared.

A huge fireball the size of a boulder flashed over Freya, and hit the knight full on, knocking her back. Beatrix snarled, and her eyes narrowed on Freya. The sword flashed silver. Freya closed her eyes briefly.

The splatter of blood.

Her eyes snapped open.

"Where is she?" Zidane fell to a knee beside Freya's prone body, holding a bleeding side. "Where is the princess?"

Beatrix looked at them--shoulder charred, a cut on her cheek--and ran.

Freya stared up at the sky. _Failure, failure, again, again this will end in blood, there is no softness in steel, my city is gone, again, everything is gone, damn you Fratley for leaving me here again_.

_Damn this._

"Freya…damn it!" Zidane turned to her, lifting up her gently, cradling her neck with his large palm. His other hand grasped her shoulder. His face was fierce. "Freya, if you ever try some heroic stunt like that again, I'll kill you myself." He patted her cheek a bit roughly. "We've got to get out of here. We've got to follow her. Can you walk?"

Freya stared at him listlessly. Quina came close and fixed its large beady eyes on the Dragoon. Zidane turned helplessly to the Qu.

"Potion," Quina said finally.

With fumbling fingers, Zidane opened up his pack and grabbed their last potion, popping the cork. He sloshed it on her muzzle a bit before tipping it all down her throat. Then with a little difficulty, he hefted her to her feet.

"Vivi, grab Freya's lance."

Freya returned in a burst of color. Her eyes blinked, focused. Zidane and Vivi stood in her view, back-dropped by a gigantic cloud of flame and smoke. In the distance, she saw a black mage disappear into a portal of churning magic, followed closely by a flash of silver and red. The bobbing straw hats of mages lumbered towards the flashing spot.

She almost collapsed again, but not quite. Wobbling on her knees, she took her lance gingerly between broken fingers, and leaned on it. She pointed in the direction of the mages, and the group turned.

"We go there. We follow her."

"I'm sorry, Freya," Vivi whispered.

"Its okay."

Zidane gave her one last anxious look, before jogging in the direction she pointed. Vivi hiccuped, and stumbled after him.

"You go," Quina said.

Freya stared at the temple, at the trees, at the bodies littering the earth. She listened to the cries for help, the screams, the slow, awful chewing of the fire as it spread. Some part of her still burned in the intensity of Vivi's flame, in a baptism of fire and blood, in the carved fractures of despair in her soul. She wanted to fall to her knees and bury herself with her people, wanted to press damp earth to her eyes and cool away the tight pain of being incapable of crying human tears. Perhaps if she collapsed, they would leave her to die. Perhaps if she collapsed, all her seams would come apart and she wouldn't have to pretend she was whole, or had been whole, or ever would be whole again.

_It will not work. It is not worth it._

Zidane, Vivi, Quina? What of them?

_One for one hundred. _No_, one hundred for one._

The answer was simple.

_Three for me._

Freya shuddered in a breath and nodded. She wanted to say something out loud, to Quina, to Fratley's empty space, to the ash bodies, to dying Cleyra. She wanted to tell them that this was responsibility—being beaten again and again with inevitability, enduring it, standing up, and taking another step. She wanted to ask why the truth of her own weakness was so unbearable, even when she knew these forces and destinies that held her down raced beyond her control. She wanted to know if this was maturation: withholding despair, accepting the insignificance of her single life, realizing that something essential existed beyond her traditions, her people, herself.

But there were no words for it, to convey this intensity

So Freya stumbled forward.


	2. Limit Break

**Title**: Limit Break  
**Theme + Number**: #4. White Magic, #5. Support, #8. Black Magic  
**Claim**: Freya  
**Characters/Pairings**: breif mentioning of Vivi, Garnet, Eiko  
**Rating**: K  
**Summary**: Limitations are important things.

* * *

True magic had been lost to the Burmecians. What little magic they possessed was not a skill to harvest, nor could it be classified into colors. It was an old magic, a magic borrowed by their gods and stolen from dragons. A magic forged into weapons and rings, called upon in prayer. It was not an endless chasm of magic, but like magic in many bottles, used in small quantities many times over. 

Freya was unsure if that was a bad thing.

To her, true magic was terrifying. She had watched what the power of fire could do, guided only by will and leisure. She had seen the gift of healing, given sparingly and unjustly and to some not at all. There was no true guidance to colored magic, no limitation to its master to protect him from his own carelessness. There was no control. For Freya, for all Burmecians, lack of control lead to the desecration of honor, the most noblest, most treasured ideal of their race.

Not having honor was the one thing in the world Freya would never allow for herself, or anyone for that matter.

And so, when Vivi or Garnet or little Eiko would cast their spells, Freya would watch them, protect them, keep them safe as best she could, for magic was a battle outside and within. She would smile and shake her head and think of them fondly and tenderly, with pride.

For Magic, magic of flame and holy, of good and evil, was a power of god given to mortals, a power made for one beyond mortal capabilities; a privilege few, if any, should have.

For Freya, it was not magic she admired, but those who used it right.


	3. Fine Distinctions

**Title**: Fine Distinctions.  
**Theme + Number**: 13. Stop  
**Characters/Pairings**: Vivi  
**Rating**: PG / K+  
**Word Count: **683  
**Summary**: It is in the details.

* * *

She found him alone sitting next to a stream, playing with the water. He cupped it and threw into the air, and then with a raised palm, cast stop on the droplets. Down they tumbled, colorless and dull, and they shattered at his feet.

Freya sat next to him. "Vivi?" She began to clean her Dragon's Hair in the river, which was caked in green blood and unmentionable gory bits. It was a gruesome chore, and one she had thought to do alone. Apparently not.

The mage sat silent.

Freya glanced at Vivi between gently scrubbing her weapon. It was a dangerous place, the forests around Daguerreo. The party had been attacked many times today, consecutive battles that allowed little time to catch one's breath. The last few had been particularly vicious, owing up to the sheer abnormal strength the creatures of this island possessed. She was surprised Vivi had gone wandering off, considering that Great Dragons lurked about.

Vivi's eyes were dull as he stared at the water. He had not looked at her once, not even when she spoke. After a moment of running her hands over the smooth blade of her lance, Freya gingerly rested the shaft against her shoulder and focused on the small mage beside her.

"Vivi, what's wrong?" Freya asked.

Vivi cupped water in his hands. A moment later, it turned gray in his palms. Hefting it in one hand, he turned to Freya. "This is what happens when something stops," he said quietly. He held the stopped water out to her.

Freya eyed the irregular-shaped mass, before taking it gently between her claws.

She blinked. She was staring at the object, and yet her fingers could not feel the stopped water. There was no pressure between her fingers, no weight. It was like pressing her fingers against a barrier of some kind, but one that was light as air. She flipped it in her hands, running her fingers over the curves and edges of the water, before returning it.

"That's strange," she said simply, "but surely not worth contemplation. What's the matter with it?"

Vivi gazed at the water in his hand a moment longer, before suddenly, it was liquid water again and it trickled through his fingers in a rush. Droplets swirled. He turned his gaze up to the Dragoon Knight.

"I don't know," he replied. Their eyes made contact. "It doesn't make sense. Things that...stop...shouldn't be allowed to unstop...should they?"

Freya saw something flicker in his golden eyes.

_How many people have...stopped moving?_

_You are very kind to use those words. But you already know what it means to live..._

_...and to die._

Freya looked at him for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Then, taking Vivi by surprise, she went back to cleaning her lance.

Vivi's hands trembled. "Tell me, Freya. Please...is it...should I...we..."

"Vivi," Freya interrupted, "stopping is not death."

Vivi stared at her. "But..."

"Stopping," Freya went on firmly, " is ceasing to exist. There is nothing inside it or outside it; it is simply a shell of something lost. Now death..."

The Dragon's Hair gleamed in the light of the sunset. Freya stood and with practiced ease, sliced the air in front of her once, twice, thrice and a fourth. Then, carefully, she balanced the shaft on her shoulder.

"Death," Freya said, the light of the sunset making her silver hair gold, "is dying after having lived."

She glanced at Vivi, and then smiled mysteriously.

"Not even death can erase your existence. Dreams, memories, actions...all these are retained in the heart of life. Even in death, you are unstopped."

Vivi dropped his gaze, staring at his open hands.

"I hope you'll follow me soon," Freya said. "One should not lose themselves to night when light is beyond the trees." Her lance pointed towards camp, but her eyes remained fixed on his pointed hat.

"O-okay," Vivi said quietly.

"Good." Then, Freya left.

Long minutes passed, but soon Vivi followed.


	4. The Right Fit

**Title: **The Right Fit  
**Pairings: **None  
**Prompts: **#20. Alexandria, #94. Passing Time  
**Rating: **K  
**Summary: **There is a something for someone in every city.  
**Word Count: **718

* * *

Alexandria is a beautiful city and it makes Freya feel uncomfortable. Partly, she thinks, because it is so rigid in nature - as if the city itself was once cultivated to grow into a predetermined form, like roses on a trestle. It reminds her of the hard cut beauty of statues, standing frozen forever in perfection. 

Six days after the Mistadons attacked, six days since Zidane and Dagger left, and already Freya wants to leave. Steiner bids her stay at the castle till the princess's return, Beatrix actually orders it, and even Freya herself knows she will wait for Zidane, even if death threatens her to leave. However, the impulse for Freya to flee resides everywhere in the castle: in the smooth stone walls, the stately books, the polished silverware at the dinner table, even the soft richness of her silk bed sheets. While Alexandria is a city of virtues (courage, fealty, and determination), it is also a city of elegance and wealth. It is a holy place for heroes and knights, those legendary people she admires and cherishes and loves, but it is also strict and stately. People here are destined for great things.

It is not a place she belongs.

Freya escapes into the city beyond the castle. Her feet make the clacking sound of nails on stone, and it draws attention to her. Men smoking cigars and women washing laundry turn to watch as she passes and she can feel their eyes like flies swarming around her. Perhaps they have not seen a Burmecian before. Perhaps they have. Ultimately, it does not matter. Their gawks are simple evidence to the foreign nature of this city.

For it is a very strange city.

Freya drifts through the marketplace, browsing stalls, walking in and out of doors (through which she must stoop, for they were not made with a Burmecian's height in mind). She watches. She studies the architecture of the buildings, tests the sturdiness of the wooden walls, and admires the texture of them. Wood is a novelty, an anomaly, to a sewer-drowned rat.

A trio of girls perches on the entrance to a hotel, chattering about jump ropes, Tetra Master, icky brothers, Mistadons, and cute Benji who lost his kitten down the alley. As she walks past, Freya is struck with how much they remind her of the girls back in Lindblum gossiping over airships, Lowell Bridges in the Theater District, and their collections of Tetra Cards. She pauses, intrigued, and then after a moment, turns down the alley.

Alexandria changes before her eyes. Wood transforms into stone, the streets become dirtier, the people stare less and less. A man at the dock gives her a friendly nod as she passes by. Not soon after, she finds little Benji, running frantically up and down a street calling for his kitten Bobo. She finds Bobo perched on the roof of his house and rescues him, but her glimpse of Alexandria from such a height pulls her to return despite the enthusiastic hugging that Benji dotes on her. She lands on the bell tower near the water's edge and finds a well-used route leading deeper into Alexandria. Despite herself, Freya is curious.

"Prince Puck would be all over these in an instant," she thinks with a smile, as she walks carefully across strategically placed boards making pathways between the houses. She watches the gritty clouds of soot rise from chimneys. Finally, she sits on the roof of a particularly nice building (new shingles, she notices, for their color has not dulled with the weather) and gazes down at the canal that separates the castle from the rest of the city.

Despite the newness of the building, there is soot and dust everywhere. Freya's traveling suit and family crest are more pink in color than red, and her hair is more gray than silver. It hardly matters to her though. Dust is a familiar thing, a counterpart to any city. Perhaps down in the marketplace the dust is hidden away, but now, up here, Freya wonders how she could have thought Alexandria so completely alien as to lack _dirt_.

Freya leans back comfortably against the warm shingles and lets the sun caress her dirty face. Drowsily, she muses that perhaps she was wrong.

She fits right in Alexandria.


	5. Eye Will Petrify

**Title**: Eye Will Petrify  
**Theme + Number**: 49. Dawn, 66. Stone  
**Pairings**: Freya/Fratley  
**Rating**: PG / K  
**Summary**: It's morning time. Wonder where you are.  
**Author's Note**: Summary comes from "1000 Miles" by Jewel. Word count: 872

* * *

Freya hates mornings in Burmecia. 

Every day, when she awakes, the rain patters so drearily on the stone buildings and stone floors that she can not summon the energy to open her eyes. Instead she lays naked in tangled sheets and waits for Sir Fratley to knock on her door.

Like clockwork, _knock_. "Are you appropriate?" he asks with a little embarrassment.

"No," she replies, and in a curious sort of way, waits to see if he will enter anyway.

He stays outside.

She gets up and throws on her attire and tells him to come in while buttoning up her jacket. He pushes open the door hesitantly, like he does every morning. It is never locked. He says nothing, though, and simply stands awkwardly in the corner, watching. He never sits down in a chair, or leans against her walls or steps closer to her. He certainly never asks her whose claws those are peeking beneath her bed, or the set of unused lock picks on her dresser, or why she has Alexandrian roses sticking out of a cooking pot.

He is so predictable, Freya thinks between buttons, behind the lids of her closed eyes. He always has been. That too, has not changed.

Once they leave her rooms, she and Fratley sit on the hard palace steps for a guard duty they have been assigned since childhood. He is like stone at her side with the same respectful rigidness she admired as a child, and she wants to break him but knows she will only break herself in the process.

So Freya closes her eyes.

It is here, where she hugs her knees and he stares unreadably into the horizon, that present and past lapse and blur. The mornings are always like this for her, unyielding and sturdy, driven by the same uninfluenced forces that directed her younger self in the same pattern. It is as if everything she has experienced between than and now is pointless, as if her efforts to change and be changed were in vain. Now she is stuck in the same past and same memory, with the same purpose and same man. Oh how peculiar life is, she thinks, that all bends and wends lead to the same unchanging path. Is the world so curved that no traveler can escape its perfect circle?

How can she have thought differently?

Freya curls deeper into herself and hardly feels the chill of the rain. With her eyes closed, she doesn't have to see that she is slowly petrifying inside.

"Freya?"

Freya opens her eyes with a start. She looks around somewhat bewildered, before realizing it is Fratley who spoke. He is still staring out at the horizon ablaze with red fire.

"I think," he says carefully, as if testing the words out, "that you should get a lock for that door of yours. Anybody could walk in and catch you off guard."

She blinks. "What?"

He turns to her. "Your door. It is always unlocked. It makes me feel...uncomfortable."

She stares at him, a bit unnerved. "I don't like to lock the door," she says, and then is surprised, and then is even more surprised that she has more to say. As if her words can no longer stand being caged. "It feels so very final, as if I am locking myself away from the rest of the world. I like to think that I am apart of it still, that it can still be with me, if it only tried." Suddenly, she is trembling and terribly frightened at the truth in her words.

Fratley does not seem surprised. He thinks on her words, tugging thoughtfully on a lock of his own hair. "Then open your window instead. Invite it in," he says seriously.

Freya blinks. "Open my window?"

"Yes."

She gapes at him in disbelief, and then throws back her head and laughs, long and loud and full. When she looks back at him, her cheeks red with mirth, he is frowning at her.

"Why do you laugh?" he asks, somewhat miffed.

"I don't have a window," she replies between chuckles. "My walls are of solid stone. You have been visiting my room for how long and not noticed?"

His face darkens in embarrassment and he turns away, rubbing his cheek with the back of his hand in a habit she has never noticed before. "Well," he says after a long moment, and suddenly he is serious again. "I am not usually looking at your room when I visit."

Freya stops laughing abruptly. A soft blush rises to her cheeks and she looks away awkwardly off into the horizon. "Oh," is all she says, and the present is awfully real and suddenly she realizes how very different she feels sitting next to him in the same spot they have always sat.

"...I shall talk with the King's Steward. I doubt he will have a problem with moving you to a room with a window."

"Um...Thank you."

The next day finds Freya in a different room on a different morning with a man who has always been different if only she had looked, she had opened her eyes, she had seen him in the morning light.


	6. A Helping Tail

**Title:** A Helping Tail  
**Characters/Pairings:** Zidane, Freya  
**Genre: **Humor  
**Rating:** PG  
**Words:** 690  
**Summary: **_When chivalry isn't dead, but should be...  
_**Notes: **In-game. Prompt: #32 Help, #52 Noon

* * *

"Why don't I-" 

"No."

"Let me just-"

"No."

Zidane was feeling frustrated. He held his hands out helplessly in front of him, shadowing Freya as she limped heavily on her lance. Every stumble she made had him jumping like a startled cactuar, every deep gasp had him curling his tail in knots. His skin itched irritably. If only she wasn't so...if only she'd stop being...

"Freya..." he cajoled, whined even.

"No!" Freya paused to wipe the sweat from her brow. The dry grasslands of the forgotten continent stretched far, sloping up and down until they hit the sea. The sun beat the earth. Every step brought a new patch of blood on Freya's tunic, which made her swear viciously. Her temper was tapering to a thin line, barely a thread of self control. She did not need Zidane's fucking chivalry.

"I don't know Freya, I think you're tiring yourself out wastefully," Zidane said, switching tactics and trying to appeal to her sense of duty. "You're no good dead on your feet. If you'd just let me–"

"No! I said fucking no!" Freya burst out. She swung at him with her spear, though her attempt was a poor one; the weapon wobbled in its slow arc, easily missing Zidane by feet. She cursed as suddenly her balance was affected, and she stumbled on her feet, trying to drag the heavy lance up.

A cool hand wrapped around hers for a moment and then suddenly the lance was righted. Before she could bite his hand–and from the look on her face, Freya looked angry enough to try anything–Zidane withdrew and watched her with silent concentration.

Leaning heavily on her make shift crutch, Freya closed her eyes and concentrated on taking a couple of breaths. In and out. In and out. Silence filled her head with peaceful bliss, allowing her to gather her thoughts slowly and carefully.

After a long moment, Zidane spoke up.

"Maybe we shouldn't have gone out to train."

Like that, Freya snapped. With a cry, she barreled towards him, knocking him down more with the force of her weight than her strength. They tumbled to the ground with a thud and the world burst into colors behind Freya's eye lids.

When next she roused, Freya found herself being carried awkwardly on Zidane's back, her spear tucked beneath his arm. He was whistling cheerful, his tail entwined around her ankle.

Freya briefly considered struggling with him, than decided against it. She was much too tired, too weak. However, that didn't mean she had to be cordial.

"You bastard," Freya hissed, though it came out more as a croak.

"A helpful one, maybe," Zidane retorted instantly. She could hear the smile in his voice. "How come you wouldn't let me carry you before?"

Freya mumbled something in his tunic.

"...what?" Zidane's pace slowed.

Freya hissed again, then said "...just because I haven't been with you lately on your romps through Gaia doesn't mean I need coddling. I've fought in worse conditions then this. I don't need your help."

They walked in silence for awhile as Zidane contemplated this. The rhythmic footfalls and the soft shush of Zidane's breathing nearly lulled Freya to sleep before he spoke up again.

"You probably don't."

Freya lifted her head from his shoulder. She hadn't even realized she had put it there. "...what?" she said groggily.

"You probably don't need my help," Zidane said, and there was a quietness to his voice that had some part of Freya's brain pay close attention. "That doesn't mean you don't deserve it."

Freya said nothing.

The walked in silence for a long time until the pointed tips of their group's tents peaked over the crest of the hill. Freya shook herself awake from a dose to find her tail wrapped around Zidane's bicep. She unwound it carefully.

Suddenly Zidane chuckled.

"What?" Freya muttered.

"Amarant is never going to let this go."

The only warning Zidane had was a sudden stiffening in Freya's body before he found himself once again pressed intimately into the ground.

Zidane only wished his love life was this interesting.


	7. Ersatz

**Title:** Ersatz**  
Characters/Pairings:** Freya, Fratley  
**Genre: **Angst  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Words:** 465**  
Summary: **_From trance to trance._**  
Notes: **Prompt: # 98 Trance

* * *

There was something both euphoric and monstrous about trance.

It began as a tiny cold pinpoint nestled and nurtured in dark crevices of the body, a bloom of soul-light against the black pits of exhaustion and hatred. Once ignited, it diffused into every sinew and fiber, a gaping maw of power seeking to fill and spill over into the air. Her skin glowed, and flakes of raw energy shivered off of her. It filled her legs, her hands, her brain, her mouth, her eyes.

Trance consumed and Freya enjoyed it. The tight ball of strength within her would unravel and spiral, ribbons of energy exploding from flesh to taste the cool rain and thunder clouds. It was the pinnacle of uncontrol, recklessness, even delirium.

It was scary.

Often, when she felt that biting pinprick, she would slip her helmet over her face lest Fratley see her wild eyes. They bulged and shivered and distorted, and they were alien to a normal Burmecian body with its normal Burmecian expressions. She thought it meant her body was incapable of handling her power, but most likely it meant her power was incapable of handling her body; unable to hold solid the body mold which encased it, her soul twisted and shaped her to fit purpose and need. It's violent gyrations reflected the wild terror beating a tattoo in her heart. But it was also thrilling, like her nerve ends were deliciously buzzing, like her entire existence was in tandem.

Her feet light and quick, she'd jump forward and back between dragons and chimeras, unable to quiet her scream-laughing even as she slipped her lance between a monster's ribs. With blood on her face, she would grin in delight and dance away, and Fratley would watch her with hooded, disturbed eyes.

In truth, she felt alive. There was something so real about the pulse in her fingertips and tips of her ears, more real than the quiet solitude between Burmician walls, the smiling mouths without smiling eyes, the rigid edge of Fratley's spine as he embraced a familiar stranger. Trance was not a state, but a purpose–an outlet for all her desperate fears and hurts, her darkest wants and needs. Within the haven of her helmet, she was a transcended beast, a celestial monster, but most of all she was solid and singular and real, not a wispy shadow of the king's cape and the prince's absence and Fratley's wane smile.

And if sometimes she cried at night, after the light was gone and the cold permeated her sweat soaked sheets, well that was normal, that was the consequence of falling in love with a fleeting dream. Trance was ugly and dirty and inevitably unsatisfying.

And yet, from trance to trance, she lapsed.


	8. Treno's Finest

**Title:** Treno's Finest**  
Characters/Pairings:** Freya, Jack/Gilgamesh/Four-armed Man  
**Rating:** PG-13 for language  
**Words:** 1313**  
Summary: **So this theif walks into a bar, see?...**  
Notes: **Prompt: #48. Hot Drink

* * *

"What'cha doin' here, love?"

Freya ignored the four-armed man. It was courtesy; she was feeling rather generous tonight. Bonus on both sides. She didn't have to waste energy punching out his guts, and in return he kept his face. That was the right thing to do, yes?

She took a swallow of her warm beer.

There was a shuffle beside her, and then a hairy arm protruded from the side of her vision. He was calling the barman, who was occupied with a pretty lady moping her sorrows at the other end. Freya looked at the ceiling pleadingly. This was why she hated bars. Even in Alexandria. There were too many idiots who thought sharing a drink with a female Burmecian might end in a new experience of a shady nature. None of them recognized, of course, that she wasn't the typical female Burmecian. Apparently, Burmecian Dragoon suits were not recognizable.

She knew she should have brought her lance.

The man beside her seemed to give up on the barman, momentarily. He was silent, and Freya had a itching suspicion he was looking at her. Of the two arms she could see, one was getting a massage from the other. It was so disconcerting that Freya took an extra large swallow and glared straight ahead.

"Not going to answer?" The voice was deep and gruff, scratchy like face stubble and cacti needles. There was a lilt of amusement somewhere in there.

"No," Freya mustered from around the rim of her drink.

"Ah." The man shifted in his seat. "Guess it's your right. Mighty strange, though, seeing Sir Freya Crescent in these parts."

Freya's head shot up so fast that beer sloshed over her muzzle. The man was eying longingly the spilt beer, but Freya could care less. She squinted at the man's features. Bright red hair, four arms, a patch. He looked familiar.

"Do I know you?" Freya inquired.

The man suddenly looked uncomfortable. "Err—no. I just…you're a famous woman, is all."

Freya wrinkled her nose. She didn't believe him, but after a minute or so of trying to recognize those distinct features, she gave up. It was a waste of energy anyway. She'd probably beat him up long ago in a bar fight or something.

She returned to her drink. The man cleared his throat, then spoke up again.

"Special occasion, love?"

Again, Freya considered and cast aside the idea to punch him. She was too tired. He wasn't worth the energy. She was partially drunk. So many excuses came to mind. She hadn't realized she had come to the point where knocking someone's head in was a chore. What would her mother say?

Freya snorted. Probably something like, _finally came to your senses. Took you long enough._

She set her glass of beer down and peered at the amber liquid. She wasn't doing anything, might as well answer the man's questions. "No special occasion," she said at last. She glanced at him. A pair of his hands were twiddling his thumbs. She watched, fascinated.

"Right," the man said. "I suppose even heroes need a drink or two." It was obvious he was trying to keep the conversation going. Freya didn't particularly want to talk; it was like pulling teeth. She rubbed her forehead.

"Sure," she sighed. Suddenly, the beer had a bad taste in her mouth. She felt awful, like her insides had turned to bile. After a moment, she pushed the beer away from her.

"You don't mind?" the man asked immediately, his hand already snatching up the glass. Freya didn't even bother responding as he slugged it all down in a single swallow. She stared half-lidded across the bar, picking at her sleeve with idle claws.

The man slammed the glass down with a satisfied sigh. "Shitty stuff," he burped, "but it hits home." He looked so content. Suddenly Freya felt irritated.

"I'm not a hero," she muttered.

The man looked up. He seemed to study her for a moment, playing with the glass.

At length, he snorted and lifted the glass to his mouth, trying to chase the last droplets into his mouth. "Course you're," he mumbled around the rim.

Freya's fist clenched. "Right," she bit out. "Of course. Kill a god and you're an instant hero. Never mind that I was scared out of my mind, or that I would have killed anything to live, even my own friends."

The man raised an eyebrow. "And?"

Freya slammed a fist on the bar, making it shudder. The barman and the girl at the other end jumped and looked over. "I don't give a fuck about what Dagger says, we aren't heroes. Even Amarant doesn't get it, though he doesn't give a fuck about much to begin with." Wow, her tongue was loose. Nervous energy churned within her. She could easily punch a hole through a wall or two. Or a skull.

The man obviously didn't care he was in mortal danger. "Haven't a shitting clue what you're blabbing 'bout," he said airily, "and I don't particularly care either. Why you getting so worked up, anyway? You're famous, who gives a flying fuck why?"

Freya's lip curled to reveal sharp teeth. "Because it's not real."

The man burst out in laughter. He had the _audacity_. Freya stood up abruptly, arms shaking.

"You—you," he gasped, tears leaking from his green eyes.

"Shut up," Freya snapped.

The man waved a hand at her. "Sit down, don't get your knickers twisted," he coughed out between guffaws. "Honestly, it's just—I'll explain," and he let out another burst of laughter.

Freya nearly clocked him. She was so close she actually lifted her arm half way. But then the will to do so disappeared. Sudden, like a snuffed candle. Whoosh, gone. She stood there, staring at him a little lost, and then just dropped in her seat. Exhausted.

The man was still trying to control his laughter. "You see," he began, chuckling, "it was just---I couldn't believe—" He paused, taking in a deep breath, then shook his head. "You don't honestly think that's what it's 'bout, do you?"

Freya stared at him. After a moment, the man sighed.

"Look," he said, and suddenly he looked awkward. On of his hands started rubbing his hair. "No one cares if you did anything for the right reasons. You did it. Killed the big baddie. That's it. An' you can say fuck 'bout whatever drove you to do it, no one's going to complain. You did it to kill evil? You did it for the fucking chocobos? Sure thing, miss, whatever you say. It's not like I care why." He picked up the glass again, staring into its glossy surface, his face pinched. Then, very softly, "Just glad you did."

There was a long moment of silence, where Freya stared and the man fiddled with everything in reach. Finally, to the man's relief, Freya turned back to face the bar and raised a hand.

"You wanna beer?" she asked casually. The man lit up so fast Freya's lips quirked. She called the barman, who came immediately over, much to her four-armed companions disgruntlement. After she'd ordered another round of the finest beer he owned, Freya turned to the four-armed man.

"So, what's your name?" Freya asked.

"Err—Jack," the man said, his eyes fixed on the filling drinks. It gave Freya the time to get another good look at him.

"Are you sure we haven't met before?" Freya asked at length. "Lindblum, maybe? Treno?"

The man stiffened considerably. "No," he said quickly, and then, under Freya's narrowed scrutiny, gave a nervous grin. "Err—does it really matter?" he asked hopefully.

Freya looked at him for a long, tense moment, the shrugged, taking the glass of beer the barman handed her.

"No," she said softly beneath Jack's crow of delight. "I suppose it doesn't."


	9. Pack Rat

**Title:** Pack Rat**  
Characters/Pairings:** Freya  
**Rating:** PG**  
Summary: **The Things They Carry.**  
Notes: **Prompt: #100 Darkness.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the phrase/title 'The Things They Carry,' nor do I take credit for the idea it is based off of. Thank Tim O'Brien.

* * *

Freya doesn't carry a large pack, but some times she wishes she did because then she'd have something to do in the sleepless dark. Then, she'd take her pack and arrange its content in symmetrical rows by size and quantity and quality, then rearrange alphabetically, then again by usage and function and worth.

She doesn't, though. So she takes someone else's.

It is an interesting experience. Freya's seen all sorts of things: kitchen pots, daggers, letter stamps, ear rings, coils of copper, jars of wax, whet stones, strings of rope, dice, leather gloves, silken shirts, coarse canvas, straw hats, belt buckles, fountain pens. She's found slips of paper with handwriting she can only feel on the tips of her fingers, a doll with hair of straw and an embroidered smile, a collection of small foreign coins all worth a single gil.

She's found other things too, the things she shouldn't see: a bag of crushed rose petals, a rusty bronze knuckle missing its pair, a jewel box with a child's teeth, bits of string knotted at different lengths, various animal skins of varying texture and size. Once, she found the plucked feathers of a bird, it's tips sharp as steel. Twice, she's discovered a knot of braided hair that was thicker the second time.

She isn't sure that the others know, though she suspects that Amarant does. He either cares to keep a secret or doesn't care about anything, but Freya is okay with either because they essentially mean the same thing. Freya is also a bit ashamed, that she lacks so much in her own life that she must steal moments of others, but it also brings her a sense of pride. In the things they carry there is a sense of nakedness and intimacy, of shame and silence. There is as much human-ness that a rat can understand.

It is painful. Freya has come to love and hate her companions, to unveil them in her eyes, to witness vulnerability without having to see their sleeping faces. Sometimes, in the daylight, she'll look at them and yearn to touch them, to press her claws against their skin and pierce the layers separating what she sees and what she knows. But if Freya is nothing, she is resilient. She can stand strong in a way the others can't, because while Quina is a myth and Vivi is a monster and Zidane is a machine, Freya is nothing. Freya is solid like a rock—there are no pores, no cubbies, no hidden compartments.

Freya doesn't have a pack because she refuses to carry anything.

Is that running away? Quite possibly. Maybe she is afraid to carry things because of what they will reveal about her, because she knows she would be very good at keeping useless things. But what does that matter now? A void's purpose is to be filled, as is a rat's to steal. She carries nothing now because she is carrying _their _things in the darkness, where the weary can't tread, where the restless and weightless abide. She will touch them with her fingers, and she will know, and she will pack it all away until the morning establishes he and she and it rather than _ours_.

Freya has no secrets to keep, but sometimes she has theirs'.

She will keep them.


	10. Mobius Band

**Title:** Mobius Band**  
Characters/Pairings:** the group  
**Rating:** PG  
**Words:** 479**  
Summary: **There is a person for every job.**  
Notes: **Prompt: #7 Chocobo.

* * *

Freya doesn't like chocobos. There are many reasons she can give as to why: a chocobo's warble gives her a headache; their gait is choppy and makes her sick; their feathers are greasy; they stink; they leave giant, gooey, white and green flecked gifts in front of her tent; they are picky and self-centered and have horrible tempers.

The _real_ reason is that birds and rats are simply not made to get along. Freya has many scars on her arms and hands because her thin bones sit at odd, uncomfortable angles on a chocobo's thickly muscled back. An occurrence, thank Shiva, that has only happened once.

Freya carries that memory with her like a grudge. If Dagger hadn't protested so much, _that _particularly infuriating chocobo wouldn't still be wandering the planet.

Zidane finds her intense dislike for chocobos amusing, even strange. He, of course, rides chocobos like he drives airships, like he navigates speed ships, like he handles anything that is fast-paced and exciting–with the ease of casual genius. Freya has always considered herself closest to Zidane, (for hunters and thieves are often part of the same circle) but it is not the case in this; it is _Amarant_, of all people, who has the right idea. In a way.

Amarant, bless his shriveled heart, scares the hell out of chocobos right from the start.

Perhaps it is because he resembles a monster himself, with his blue skin and flaming red hair. Whenever Amarant gets too close to Zidane gently coaxing a wild chocobo for riding, the beastly creature (the chocobo, not Amarant) gives a frightened warble and scampers off. Zidane curses, Dagger frowns slightly, Eiko shouts, Steiner discreetly sighs in relief, and Vivi watches it run off with a curious, almost longing gaze. Amarant rolls his eyes because he thinks that chocobos are complete waste of time to begin with—hoorah to that.

Freya finds the whole charade very amusing. It's like having a family again, with everyone possessing different quirks and annoying qualities, different tastes and likes. A circle of more than monkeys and rats—but even then, a twisted oblong band more than a perfect shape. While Zidane and Amarant throw curses back and forth, (which Dagger protests because Eiko and Vivi listening) Freya lopes smoothly towards Steiner and leans on her lance. His face is contorted in its usual uncertainty, caught between loyalty to his princess and loyalty to his own peace of mind.

They watch in silence as Zidane spots another chocobo in the far distance. Amarant, in almost but not quite defiance, lounges nonchalantly farther away, peering at the unsuspecting beast with his unnerving monster stare.

Suddenly, Freya voices what she and Steiner are really both thinking. "It's good to have Amarant on the team, isn't it?"

Steiner glances at Dagger, then, "...Absolutely."

(And like that, the circle closes around them all.)


	11. Lady Lancer

**Title: **Lady Lancer  
**Characters/Pairings:** Steiner, Beatrix  
**Genre: **Gen  
**Rating:** PG13  
**Words:** 655  
**Summary: **_She rules the skies  
_**Notes: **In-game. Prompt: #2 Mist.

* * *

"_Rei of foam and sea, give thy blessing of gentle breath_," Freya whispers fiercely. The power of her faith flickers. Her lance pulsates in response and a coolness washes over her and her companions like soothing rippling water, a deep contrast to the sharp pinpricks of rain pouring from the black sky. Steiner grunts in surprise, and at a lull in the battle, salutes her. Beatrix does not notice.

It doesn't matter. Freya slides behind the Mistodon attacking Steiner and sinks her blade deep.

Mistodons. There are tales of them in the Burmecian tomes. Monsters of myth and mist. They rush together like the mist, suffocating, continuous, wave after wave of devil-spawn white breath and black blood. Their claws cut through stone like fingers through liquid, like a blade through supple silk. But they are vermin, nothing more. Behind their thick carapaces, they are slaves of consumption. They congregate and charge like cavalry before the thundering sweep of a catastrophe. Or so the priests say.

They are vicious vermin, at any rate.

"To the left," comes the whisper, near silent in the chaos, and like liquid shadow Beatrix slips away. It is undoubtedly her way of saying thanks. Freya responds on instinct—she pulls her lance up just in time to block a lunging mistadon. Its pincers snap inches at her face before she heaves, using its momentum to propel it to her left. She spins, finds two more at her back and a third approaching her side. Freya curses, then begins to chant. The soles of her feet burn, hot and green and to the bone.

Just before the pincers catch her, she Jumps.

The land falls away like the idle turn of a page. Freya soars through the rainy sky, shooting through static and mist. Electricity snaps at her skin, clinging like reproachful lover. Instead of fatigue, Freya finds her pulse racing faster. She nears the peak of her jump with a breathless laugh as the storm of mist chases her twitching tail.

For a brief moment, gravity suspends. She holds in space, transfixed in the delicate stillness. Slowly, her eyes fix on the crawling pinpricks below.

The chant falls from her lips like a verdict. _"Rei of shade and storm, let thy axe of judgment purge the unworthy."_

Her lance hums, and for a beautiful moment she feels them. Her people. An overturned cart. A child's laughter. The rain falling on blue cobblestones like the echoing of bells. In her inner eye, she falls into an ocean of green vaster than the Gaian seas, feels the touch of her brethren's minds like a kiss. They are one; that is the Burmecian way. This is her religion, her faith, the source of her people's magic. No other race can understand the singular beauty of being nothing and everything at once. She is a tool with a purpose, an extension, a grain of sand on an eternal beach.

She is a warrior. She has her role in the hierarchy of their world. She will kill.

The timeless moment shatters like crystalline glass. The earth tugs and she begins to fall, slowly at first, then faster so that her throat closes tight from the terror of it. But there is a thrill too, because Freya knows she will be fine. She has _faith_.

The courtyard of Alexandria flies towards her. The mistidon who had nearly decapitated her seconds ago hardly gives a twitch when her lance parts it's shell like warm butter. She has sunk knee-deep into cold flesh before time seems to catch up. The thing screams a tortured sound that reverberates in her bones, taking out the corner of a building in its writhing. After a few useless seconds it shudders, then slides into neat halves.

When Freya climbs out of the smoking, squelching remains, Steiner stumbles a bit, mouth agape. Beatrix's gaze is calculating.

Freya smirks.


	12. The Art of Fire Playing

******Title:** The Art of Fire Playing**  
****Characters/Pairings:** Freya**  
****Genre: **angst**  
****Rating:** PG13**  
****Words:** 357**  
****Summary: **_Some tools are necessary.  
_******Notes: **In-game. Prompt: 9# Fire, 26# Fear. Several heavy edits have changed this significantly from the original.

* * *

Freya hates fire because it reminds her of the smell of burnt fur. Of Cleyrians–_Burmecians, really_–turned to ash as Cleyra was purged in flame. She respects fire, however, for what it is; that same primitive force has warmed her during rainstorms on Burmecian fields, carved the sharp point of her spear, and frightened away the monsters of the night. Though it casts its own shadow, it is also a tool to ward against darkness. She would rather use it then let it use her.

Playing with fire, however, is not easy. If she is afraid of fire controlling her, she is a thousand times more afraid of it consuming her. She thinks about what she would have done if it had been her standing in a house of fire as it came down around her head. The suffocation from a smoke as dense and bleak as the bottom of the sea. Eyes wet from the heat, seeking a way out. Her skin, crackling and curling. Stumbling in the dark. The only light a voracious, blood red flame.

She wants to think she would have made it. But she can never know, because instead of leaping into those houses and saving her kin, she had fled through a black mage portal to the safety of the _Red Rose_. It didn't matter that Zidane had to practically toss her in, limping and all. She'll never forget how she gripped the wooden banister and watched Odin obliterate the tree like so much kindling, instantaneous and black. She'll always remember the strange mercy of the act, and her thought-_better than to burn._

Freya hates fire. It is a slow, churning, drawn out killer. But after that day on the airship, Freya can no longer delude herself. Of all the things she can't forget, there is only one thing she wishes she could. The moment when she turned her back to the burning tree, eyes dry, and readied her spear.

The sad truth is, a Dragoon's duty is not to save her people. A dragoon's duty is to fight Burmecian's enemies.

Fire is a tool. Ultimately, so is she.


End file.
